Challenges when maintaining or introducing a corporate health plan

9 March 2018 - 8:34am

Employee turnover is expensive - more so than you'd think. In fact, a business of 50 employees can expect a turnover of roughly 10 staff per year, according to estimates from Harrison Human Resources. They also stated that the costs of hiring and retraining, as well as loss of productivity for replacing one employee could cost as much as their yearly salary.

For 10 employees or more, that could could be far north of $500,000. With that cost in mind, employee retention initiatives like corporate health insurance start to make a lot of sense -but they're not without their challenges.

Maintaining an effective corporate health insurance plan can help you keep the employees you can't afford to lose.

Retaining experience and expertise

One of the key goals of any HR initiative must be to retain the talent that you can't afford to lose. It can be difficult to do so when maintaining a corporate health insurance plan if it's not well implemented or aligned with your company's HR goals.

The fix here is straightforward. A health insurance plan with full cover is becoming increasingly attractive as premiums rise and therefore a great incentive for employees. Reward long serving or exceptional workers by offering them insurance, or increased cover as a reward. It's usually cheaper for you than a bonus or increased annual leave, and it could be just as effective.

At the end of the day with most businesses, the success or failure of new initiatives comes down to cost.

Ensuring cost and tax efficiency

At the end of the day with most businesses, especially start ups and SMEs, the success or failure of new initiatives comes down to cost. With corporate health insurance, there is potential for cost variation, thanks to your employee's different levels of lifetime cover loading, or their rebate tier nomination.

Thankfully, a well structured corporate health plan can help you keep costs at a constant minimum.

This can be done in several ways, including by introduce fixed subsidy levels independent of rebate entitlement/nomination or lifetime cover loading. This will keep costs the same, and shift the responsibility for the variable components back to your employees.

For help introducing a corporate health insurance plan that helps you keep your best staff, and costs exactly what you expect it to - get in touch with a consultant here at HICA.